Thursday, August 09, 2001

Lunch at the Palm

The next morning we got up and took a cab to the Imperial Palace. The Imperial Palace houses the Auto Collection, which Christina really wanted to see. The guidebook said that admission was $7, or free with a coupon from the casino. Seeing this, I think, "Why would the casino give us a coupon? Let's pay the $7." Christina, on the other hand, thinks, "Where can we get the free coupons?" So she -- get this -- asks people. And gets the free coupons. Huh. Well, live and learn.

So we spent an hour or so looking at some really cool cars. My favorite, I think, was the popemobile. Certain cars were less impressive -- ooh, it's a Chevy Impala. Ooh, this car was owned by Tom Jones. Or Elvis. OK, that is pretty cool. Elvis' Caddy. Best of all, the cars were all for sale (this is Vegas, after all), so we could dream about hitting it big and driving home in one cool ride. Sadly, that didn't happen, so I don't have to worry about where to park the popemobile. (In case you're wondering what the pope is doing these days w/o the popemobile, this was a specially modified Land Rover solely used for his visit to England.)

I'm going to get all sorts of hits from people searching for "popemobile" now, aren't I?

After that, it was across the street to Caesars Palace for lunch. We had a lot of trouble getting into Caesars Palace. No, not the dress code (this is Las Vegas). Rather, all the construction that they have going on. After a while, we made our way in and through the casino (the number one rule of Vegas is that you have to go through the casino to get anywhere) to the Forum, their set of shops. I'm not sure who comes to Las Vegas to go shopping -- people with too much money, I guess. Which describes Las Vegas' favorite visitors in general.

We headed to The Palm. Now, I've eaten better food -- I ate better food elsewhere on this trip -- but I'm not sure I've eaten in a restaurant with better service. The staff was very attentive, but they made us feel very welcome. Usually, I would say "nice restaurant" + "good service" = "me feeling uncomfortable." But these guys were great, and served the most ridiculously large quantities of food imaginable. I couldn't even finish my giant hamburger, and I wasn't hungry for the next 20-odd hours. An offhand remark by Christina about her birthday led to the staff bringing out a slice of cheesecake with a candle on it and singing "Happy Birthday". All in all, a great time, and perhaps the highlight of the day for me.